Welcoming CardSpring to the Twitter team - Twitter Advertising Blog - "We’re excited to announce we’ve agreed to acquire CardSpring, a payments infrastructure company that helps merchants work with leading publishers to create online-to-offline promotions."

Coming Soon to Social Media: Click to Buy Now - New York Times Bits Blog - "A Twitter spokesman declined to comment on the imminence of a buy button, but in its blog post about CardSpring, the company teased, “We’ll have more information on our commerce direction in the future.”

What the BRICS Tell Us About Payments - PaymentsViews.com (Elizabeth McQuerry) - "Are such state sponsored payments improvements the way to go? Am I prophesying that the end is near for private sector innovation in payments? Certainly not, or at least I hope not."

Investors Cash Out Of Payment Technology Startups - TechCrunch - "Even as a clutch of new payment technology companies including Zooz Mobile and Plastiq announce new financing rounds today, it seems like investors are no longer paying out for payment companies."

Issuers – Why You Need to Plan for EMV Now - FIS Emerging Payment Strategies Blog - "While EMV is not a silver bullet, it is an improvement over magstripe. It may not have prevented some of the recent major breaches, but it would have reduced overall damage since there would have been fewer cards vulnerable to counterfeiting."

NY DFS Releases Proposed Bitlicense Regulatory Framework for Virtual Currency Firms - "Benjamin M. Lawsky, Superintendent of Financial Services, today announced that the New York State Department of Financial Services (DFS) has issued for public comment a proposed “BitLicense” regulatory framework for New York virtual currency businesses. The proposed regulatory framework – which is the product of a nearly year-long DFS inquiry, including public hearings that the Department held in January 2014 – contains consumer protection, anti-money laundering compliance, and cyber security rules tailored for virtual currency firms."